Mega Man Legends 2: Great Inheritance

Legends 2 is a game that takes a step forward and two steps back. It is the mantra of this game. It seems that for every new improvement to the game there is a nasty new problem that pops up. It feels more refined than the original for sure, but it lacks the innovation the first game had (a shocker for Mega Man I know) and most of the design feels uninspired and lazy. What isn't brand new is territory tread much to far, and what is new is tedious and shows either a developer intention to frustrate the player or a huge lack of play testing oversights.

Legends 1 was far from perfect but it tried to make up for it's faults in other areas and disguised a lot of them by taking it easy on the player. Legends 2 feels like the slapped a band-aid on all the problems of Legends 1 and then tried to run with a whole host of new ideas that the engine isn't polished enough for. This leads to an increase in difficulty that is nearly 100% due to the games lack of solid controls. The worst part is, some idiots at Capcom had the idea in their head that bad controls are legitimate difficulty challenges. The game literally asks you if you like a challenge when selecting a control scheme. THE PLAYABILITY OF A GAME IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR GAME DESIGN! God this is why I hated the Resident Evil series for so long. Capcom dropped this retarded attitude with Resident Evil 4 and hopefully it's dead and buried forever.

Back on topic, once again the reason this game isn't as good as it should be is because of playability. Legends made up for this by designing around the controls short comings, Legends 2 does not, and whats more it has a whole new host of straight up stupid design decisions. More on that in a bit.

New Features

• More Control schemes including Dual Analog support, however you're stuck with an asinine button configuration for it.
• New characters who I assume would probably had returned should the series had continued from this point.
• Mega Man's kick has been replaced with a Mega Arm that picks up objects and enemies.
• Mega Man can now lock on to targets and run and shoot them.
• The shielding system from Mega Man Legends has been removed.
• The armor equipment has been expanded upon.

Story

Like the first game this one opens up with a premise, dicks around for a bit, then throws all the important details at the end of the game. Luckily for us, this game answers all of the first games questions and doesn't leave us hanging with any real new questions. Yes it has a cliff hangar but not one that the solution isn't fairly obvious should a third game be made so it's nothing to worry about.

Some time after the events of the first game, Barrel Casket (Roll's Grandfather) is holding a press conference with his friend the multi-millionaire Werner von Buecher about an upcoming journey to "The Forbidden Island," which they believe is the location of the Motherlode, the big treasure mentioned in the first game. During the press conference a woman who resembles Roll's mother interrupts it and warns that the Motherlode is a catastrophe and not a treasure and that they should avoid it at all costs. The completely reasonable von Buecher guard unit then opens fire on her. She jumps out the window on a big flying... bird... thing and her bird thing named Gatz accidentally destroys their engine sending the giant swirling storm surrounding the Forbidden Isle.

MegaMan and Roll see the events unfold on TV and decide to rescue them. Roll has some blueprints for a drop ship that her father made and they stop at an settlement near the Forbidden Island to gather parts to make it. However, they find a man named Joe who has lost his memory who has already built the drop ship and gives them permission to use it. It is alluded to that he maybe Roll's long lost father, but considering he doesn't even have a voice actor this revelation surprisingly goes no where.

Anyway, MegaMan drops in the Forbidden Island and finds a mysterious girl named Sera and her keeper there. The seem to recognize MegaMan as Trigger and are from the ancient civilizations that built the ruins. They promise to lead Buecher to the Motherlode (which will give them all the refractors they need) if Beucher can get Sera the four hidden keys needed to unlock it. Guess who Beucher asks to go get them?

So now we're on an adventure to get all the keys, but all the pirates have teamed up against us to get them first. The Bonnes, Glyde and his Bird Bots from Misadventures, and a couple of new characters, Klaymoor and Bola. While a lot of hilarious moments happen here (both of Tron's encounters are the highlights of the entire game) the main story doesn't move forward until MegaMan returns all four keys.

Once he does, Sera attacks Beucher's ship and steals the keys. During the attack MegaMan takes out Sera's keeper (who turns into a giant bird thing himself) but gets badly damaged in the process. During this period, the woman who looks like Roll's mother helps repair MegaMan and restores his memory. She introduces herself as Yuna, "The Mother Unit of Terra." Terra is Earth, don't think much on why they bothered to change the translation.

We go through MegaMan's memories. MegaMan, Yuna and Sera all come from Elysium (remember what X said he was going to build in X5?). Elysium is the home of the last human to ever live The Master, and Sera was the Mother Unit of Elysium. MegaMan was a purifier unit, or in more recognized terms, a Maverick Hunter. In the Japanese version, he is literally an Irregular Hunter (the Japanese name for Mavericks).

We find out the origins of the people who remain on Earth. They are called "Carbons" and are essentially artificially created humans. They are kinda like Reploids but much much much much more advanced. They have desires such as hunger, suffer from disease, can age, reproduce and die. They are pretty much humans created from other humans.

They aren't seen as equals however, and considered by the system in place an inferiority to humans because they are artificial. Elysium serves the purpose of protecting the Master from the hardships of normal life that the Carbons suffer, and should the Master die, his genetic code would be used to clone new humans and the Carbons would be wiped out in order to make room for the new clone human species on Earth.

The Master takes a fondness to MegaMan and asks to see the Earth. There he questions the system and doesn't want to wipe out the carbons. He asks MegaMan to destroy the system then dies because being outside of Elysium for even a few minutes when you're 3000 years old gives you a hell of a heart attack.

MegaMan takes the Masters genetic code and is sought after by Mother Sera to start the Carbon Reinitialization process. Since MegaMan is going against the system, he is now considered a Maverick and the system is to track them down. Sera wants to hunt MegaMan down, but Yuna wonders what is motivating MegaMan to act this way and takes a more neutral position. Frustrated, Sera comes to Earth to fight MegaMan and the two nearly wipe each other out completely. Yuna seizes the opportunity to seal Sera away in stasis and "resets" MegaMan so he may heal from his wounds and his memories are stored within Data the monkey. MegaMan is eventually found by Barrel Casket and adopted.

Also worth mentioning is that in between this time, for some reason that is very loosely explained, Yuna takes Roll's mothers body temporarily. The Roll's parents subplot is actually really stupid when everything comes together.

After restoring MegaMan, Yuna decides to aid him by taking him to Elysium. She tells MegaMan that it is his decision to either support the systems Carbon Reinitialization or to destroy it. They say this a bunch of times as if they were actually giving the player a choice like for multiple endings or something, but no actually, there is only one choice.

MegaMan goes and faces Sera who after fighting MegaMan, she understands the Master's wishes (what the hell is with this franchise and people figuring things out as they fight?). She's about to die, but Yuna has her transfer her AI to Yuna's old body. Yuna says that other systems are still in place that will awaken eventually to threaten the carbons and the three of them will need to stop it. She then wonders how they're going to get back to Earth.

The last scene shows Roll and Tron arguing about how to build a rocket to get to space to save them. Data worryingly says, "Sorry MegaMan, but it looks like you're going to be up there a while longer." You have no idea Data.

Legends is really strong with the characters more than the main plot which really tries to have you digest too much all at once in very specific points. The overall performances are great, except during the flashback sequence in which MegaMan has some really painful dialog to listen to, and the Master is the most boring and emotionless character ever made. Otherwise, the game sets up what would have no doubt been about a million sequels to come if the series wasn't put on hold indefinitely by Capcom.

Aesthetics

A huuuuuuge improvement over the last game. Everything looks much better, the characters, the environments and the dungeons. MegaMan got a bit of a redesign himself, and he looks a little less cartoony and a little more serious. I prefer this look myself. The other characters have had some touch ups themselves and are much less blocky looking.

The game came out just before the release of the PS2 so the graphics were comparable to other games at the time but that wouldn't last long as you'd imagine. More important than the straight graphical prowess however is how much more interesting this game looks compared to it's predecessor and games around the same time period. Yes, there are much better looking games out there, but this one isn't bad.

The last games stages all were pretty bland and there wasn't much variety in the environments. The opposite is true in this game as you'll travel the whole world in a variety of environments and locales. The individual dungeons have their own themes going on with them and are much more memorable for it.

Legends 1 consisted of one central town that was made up of squares, but the cities in are much more interesting, albeit individually smaller.

One thing to say about this game is that it actually has good cinematography and goes a great distance to capture the scenes from the best possible angles. I had about 150 screenshots to sort through and almost all of them were framed so well. It was tough choosing the best ones. I really like how this game looks, and it's one of the high lights of the Mega Man franchise.

Sound

Also very good. The sound track is excellent and greatly improved from Legends. Legends as a series is more symphonic than most Mega Man games but it fits the series better. The music accompanies each scene beautifully and enhances the appropriate emotions quite well.

The voice acting once again is great and most of the voice actors from the previous games make a reappearance. MegaMan's voice has changed and many complain it's a bit too feminine, but I guess as someone whose seen just about everything related to Mega Man voice acting it doesn't bother me so much. He just sounds younger than the last MegaMan Trigger to me. Like I said in the story section, he just has some really bad dialog in the flashback.

One confusing thing is that if "Joe" is as important a character as they lead one to believe with regards to Roll... why does he not have any voice acting? In fact, a few scenes you would think would be important are missing voice acting. It's really more confusing then terrible though. The sound on a whole is pretty good though.

Design

The game opens with a fire starting on the Flutter. You put it out, watch some story, have a bit of a mini dungeon and a few boss fights before you get to your first real dungeon which is decently enjoyable.

Then from here on out the game starts getting worse and worse. Most of the boss fights are pretty fun but they are all much more difficult than Legends. They exhibit different patterns and motions leaving you needing to use more strategy instead of running and shooting which worked in Legends 1, the final boss fight especially.

The weapons in this game are improved over the first, but once again since you can only take one with you at a time, most of them won't get used being how situational they are. The Fire Extinguisher sub weapon is a great example of how useless some of them are. You use it in the very beginning because you are forced to, and then at some random point in the game they actually suggest you use it during a boss fight as if you would have been stupid enough to bring the damn thing with you. These are the only sections in the game where you put out fires, so whats the point?

One of the other problems with these weapons however is that they are WAAAAAAY to expensive to upgrade. Grinding out cash is really slow, but if you use cheap ways to get it you'll probably get around 1,000,000 zenny every half hour or so. Some of these weapons cost around 18,000,000 to upgrade and it just isn't worth your time to do this. The Legend's 1 prices compared to this were still bad, but manageable, these are insane and not even counting the other junk you have to buy.

MegaMan's new lifter arm replaces the kick however, and that is an improvement as you can pick up most enemies and hurl them at each other, usually instantly killing them. You will always have this with you, leading to some small block moving sections. It opens up the possibility for puzzle solving, although it's rarely utilized.


The enemies are extremely tedious. Not difficult, tedious. They charge at you, jump into you, fire at you from really weird angles and take FOREVER to kill. It doesn't help that MegaMan goes comically flying in every which way from the slightest tap from an enemy making these fights to seemingly never end. Sometimes the game gets really fucking cute with you and lines up some dead end rooms with these really annoying enemies and locks the door until you fight them. This is especially bad in Elysium which would almost be a fun dungeon if it wasn't for these fuck you rooms.

Most of the dungeons are ok except for the god forsaken under water dungeon. This dungeon just flat out reeks of "WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING!?" This is the worst section of the game for thousands of reasons the first of which is because MegaMan is underwater, you move at half speed. WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA TO PLAY IN SLOW MOTION? I could stand this if it wasn't THE LONGEST DUNGEON IN THE GAME. ARG! FUCK THIS DUNGEON IT TAKES FOREVER! Even if you buy the water chip so you can skate across it you still move really slow and can't attack while skating anyway so what's the point? The dungeon also sticks the boss behind a wall that you need to drill behind, so unless you go out of your way to drill the wall, run allllllllll the way back to Roll to switch weapons then come alllllll the way back, you're buster dueling the boss which is a gigantic pain in the ass since it's 3 monsters constantly shooting at you. Shooting at you while you're moving in slow motion I might add. It's not hard, it's just fucking tedious.

Another tedious section is the ice dungeon where you have to chase around keys to get to the locked room. They are annoying as all hell to catch and you need to use the grabber to get them, so fuck your special weapons. It's not hard, it's tedious.

Some design choices make you just wonder what the hell the point was. For instance, there is a quiz you can take after the first real dungeon. You would think it would be really interesting to have some MegaMan questions to answer but NO! This game asks you shit about the Russian revolution, Geography and Math. Who the fuck thought people would want to play this to simulate their school experience?

The design in this game excels in only challenging the players patience. Like I said, it's not hard, it's tedious.

Playability

The nicest feature is that we can now lock on targets and fire while running with the targets locked on. The problem is the lock on feature is extremely fickle and drops your target all the fucking time. Other times it targets them at an angle and you still can't fucking hit them. And targeting multiple enemies? Forget it as your targeting has a hard time distinguishing the dangers of a giant fire breathing reaverbot and a flea. You can set the targeting to auto if you really hate yourself. The main problem with the controls here is that the game design in Legends 2, unlike Legends 1, doesn't compensate for it's shitty controls and the difficulty is increased ten fold because of it. But that difficulty comes in from MegaMan getting tossed around more than directly taking damage, so it's all just tedium.

As I mentioned before this game supports dual analog, but changes the button configuration on you to really asinine controls for it. All I have to say is, WHY WON'T YOU LET ME SET MY OWN CONFIGURATION!? Or make one that doesn't suck! Shit. This game isn't unplayable, but they really didn't try to make this game much better than the original Legends.

Extras

• The Buster Cannon is a decent weapon to focus upgrading on. It's extremely powerful although you can't move while firing with it. It'll really fuck up the early bosses though. At the end of the game, grab the shining laser though.
• The best way to gain cash is to enter the B License sub-ruins on Pokte Island and keep going in and out of it until the first enemy you see is a running treasure chest. Run into the dungeon until you find the Golden Duck reaverbot. He drops about 8,000-10,000 each time you kill him and respawns when you leave the room.
• This game also features a dark side/light side meter, but the only point of it is to gain an extra weapon. Kick some pigs around to become dark side and speak to a merchant in the desert village to find the part for the Crusher.
• Roll has a diary you can read in her room recapping the events from her perspective. If you give her gifts you'll eventually be able to get a discount from her when improving your weapons. Her diary also has a "secret" message for you if you are really nice to her the whole game.
• Speaking of this, if you use your grabber weapon on Roll at the start of the game, she'll scream and slap you. MegaMan is perverted.

What's the verdict on this game? It's fun, but not as good as Mega Man Legends, specifically because of those mind numbingly tedious bits. Still it sucks that the Legends series cut off as it was about to get going. If Legends 3 ever does get made though, it's going to have to blow these games out of the water to be successful. Capcom can do that if they don't get lazy, something Capcom is also good at being.

Playthroughs
N/A